I am a Burmese exile taking a near-permanent refuge in New York and Sydney. Here are my essays about Burma and anything else I feel like writing about. And posting the articles I like from selected sites. Bridging Burma to the world this Blog is more of a Politically-Oriented Literary Blog than a Plain News Blog or a Sophisticated Thoughts Blog.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Muslim Refugee Plowed SUV Into Austrian Crowd

BOSNIAN MUSLIM refugee, Alen Rizvanovi,
who ran down and killed several people in Austria’s second largest city GRAZ
yesterday, allegedly was a fan of violent jihad and terrorism supporters.

A four-year-old boy is reported to be
one of three people killed after an SUV ploughed into a crowd of people in
Graz, Austria. Another 34 people were injured in the attack, with six -
including two children - said to be in a serious condition.

Eyewitnesses say the driver rammed into
crowds at up to 90mph before he got out and began randomly stabbing bystanders,
which included the elderly and policemen. The three victims killed in the
attack have been described as a 28-year-old Austrian man, a 25-year-old woman
and a four-year-old boy. The woman and boy were both killed as the driver
ploughed through crowds on the main Herrengasse shopping street before reaching
the city's main square.

When
Alen Rizvanovi plowed into a crowd in an SUV and then got out and began
stabbing people with a large knife, the local media and authorities in Austria
insisted that the Bosnian Muslim refugee was: A. Mentally ill, B. Reacting to a
failing marriage, C. Operating under completely inexplicable motives.

Terrorism was loudly and vocally ruled
out. The media made much of the fact that one of his victims was a fellow
Bosnian Muslim running photos of Muslim women in hijabs holding up a photo of
the dead man, though the women don’t appear to physically resemble either of
the victims and it’s not clear if the woman was even wearing a Hijab at the
time of the attack in which case the killer would not have been able to tell
them apart from the natives.

Of course we don’t know at this stage Alen Rizvanović’s motives, but his
actions were very similar to Muslim terror attacks carried out in Israel, which
also involved running people over and then getting out and stabbing them.

A Facebook account registered to a man
of the same name also living in Austria suggests that the killer was a devout
Muslim. His favorite book appear to be Islamic texts. They include entries like
Light of the Koran and the Hadiths of Mohammed.

More troublingly his likes include this
Facebook page which promote Islamists like Mohamad al-Arefe who has been linked
to Jihadists. The notorious Saudi cleric preached at a mosque accused of
radicalising three young Britons fighting in Syria.

Although banned from entering
Switzerland because of his extremist views, al-Arifi has visited the UK several
times. A Sunni Muslim, he has been accused of stirring up tensions with the
rival Shia sect, reportedly calling it evil and accusing adherents of kidnapping,
cooking and skinning children. He was briefly arrested by the Saudis, banned
from the UAE and from Switzerland for promoting beating women.

His views on abusing little girls are sick. In a talk show appearance,
al- Arefe gave advice to victims of parental molestation, and urged family
members to not call the authorities. According to al-Arefe, “The girl should
not be left alone with her father nor should she wear provocative clothing
around him.” And he’s all in on the Jihad.

In another YouTube video cited by the
authors of the FDD report, Jonathan Schanzer and Steve Miller, al-Arefe
advocates violence against non-Muslims. “Devotion to jihad for the sake of
Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for
the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for
the believer,” the Muslim cleric says. “Allah said that if a man fights the
infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight [the Muslims].”

Some skulls were probably smashed when
Alen Rizvanović rammed his SUV into a crowd. Alen Rizvanović’s likes also
include Naser Oric, a Bosnian war criminal, whom he liked twice. Also liked was
Zakir Naik who had said, “Every Muslim should be a terrorist.”

While it’s not
confirmed that this is the same man as the killer, since the latter’s photo has
yet to appear in the media, if it is him, it shows that he was a strong
believer in Islam and a fan of Islamists who called for Jihad against
non-Muslims. The authorities have been quick to rule out an Islamic connection,
but they may have spoken too soon.

(Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center,
is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.)